Friday, March 14, 2008

Balance

In the interests of fair and balanced reporting, I need to update a little further on our 2.5-year-old's latest doings. While happy defiance and two-year-old tantrums do feature, they really aren't too bad when we've had some sleep, and there's lots of other good stuff to balance them out. Within the past few weeks, Ellie's vocabulary has hit another noticeable explosion, and she now conducts conversations in (mostly) complete sentences. Although the grammar is a blend of English, German and toddler rules, she manages to make herself very well understood and she is often a marvel among the toddler set. This girl has something to say, and darn it all if she isn't going to say it! She gets very excited recounting adventures and often there's a lot of gasping for air in the midst of a sentence, as in: "Yesterday (hunh hunh) Ellie's stripey hat (hunh hunh hunh) fell canowl" [that's "canal" for you laymen]. "Wind (hunh hunh) strong wind (hunh) blew Ellie's stripey hat (hunh) canowl. Yeah." That "yeah" reminded me of another change: her attendance at the British school has almost entirely replaced Ellie's "yeah" with "yes", and of course during snack time at school she has fruit and a "biscuit" [cookie]. As always, we have to be very mindful of what we say, because it certainly comes back to us, and usually at the most unexpected times. For example, at bedtime, Markus will often have to wait several minutes before getting Ellie into her pajamas, because he has been told, "Ellie need put all friends in bed. Just a second, Papa. Please wait." Even the happy defiance has its own accompanying commentary. This morning after scattering 50 animal-shaped plastic cookie cutter across the kitchen floor, Ellie stretched out her arms in amazement and exclaimed, "Look all these cookie cutters on floor!" Well, now...I wonder how that happened.

In other news, I have been tagged by gail for the "5 Things About Me" meme, so here goes:

1) I am a sucker for unexpected, romantic gestures.

2) Since having lived in New Orleans, I get nostalgic for food first when I reminisce about places we've been.

3) I eat popcorn with butter and salt nearly every day. I have had this addiction since the sixth grade.

4) When I was little, I used to spin and spin in my WonderWoman Underoos thinking that if I spun fast enough, I could change clothes just like Linda Carter did on TV. Now that I'm a mom, I just want to be ElastiGirl from "The Incredibles."

5) I often create large goals or projects for myself that I keep secret. Perhaps I don't want anyone to know about it in case I abandon it or fail in some way. Perhaps I just like secrets.

PS. I must also say that I can identify, once again, with little Miss Ellie. The other day I was like a whirlwind tearing up our kitchen. Dan walked into the chaos, looked at me in shocked wonderment, to which I replied by looking around in wide eyed surprise, "Look at this mess!" In unspoken parenthesis: did I do that?